Sometimes art is dangerous. Not just in the metaphorical sense of subversive ideas changing society or the way people think. No, sometimes it’s actually physically dangerous.

Andy Stowers found out the hard way in a recent performance for EMU Theatre. Playing Batman in a short play during EMU’s annual 10-minute play festival in March, Stowers, jumped off a box and landed awkwardly.

“He was limping through the rest of the play,” says EMU’s public relations director Jerry Salisbury. “But I thought it was part of the act.”

It wasn’t. Stowers was still limping afterward, so he went to the doctor.

“He’d torn some ligaments in his knee,” Salisbury says. “It required surgery to reconstruct, during which time he couldn’t work.”

Worse, Stowers had no health insurance. Getting his knee repaired has required enormous out-of-pocket expenses.

“He’s been such an important part of what we do,” Salibury says, “we thought we should band together to see what we could do to help.”

What they came up with was a benefit performance of the original musical “Johnny Butts.” The show, which Stowers co-wrote with Nick Wells and was originally performed at the Lawrence Arts Center in 2005, concerns a mentally-ill artist. When his work is discovered by a gallery owner, he begins taking medication. But that alters his work unfavorably.

The Lawrence Arts Center will host the benefit at 7 p.m. Saturday.

“‘Johnny Butts’ is the only show EMU Theatre has ever performed on the main stage of the Lawrence Arts Center,” Salisbury says. “We’re pleased we’ll be able to do that again this time.”
Admission to the show, which will be presented as a staged reading, is free, but donations are requested. All proceeds will be donated to Stowers to offset his medical expenses.

“We’re a pretty tight-knit community,” Salisbury says of EMU. “We just want to be able to help out one of our own.”

“Johnny Butts” plays at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 1, on the main stage of the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire St. Doors open at 6:30pm.